Tired of the everyday grind?
Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure?
Want to get away from it all?
We offer you Escape!
Escape!
Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Escape!
You are the subject of an experiment.
An experiment to make you the most powerful man on earth.
While if it succeeds, from that moment you will be forever locked in a world from which there can be no escape.
So listen now as Escape brings you Irving Reese's extraordinary story, The Man From Tomorrow.
It started with a want ad in the daily paper.
Wanted, ex-fighter pilot must be in perfect health and prepared for rigid tests.
Successful candidate will receive good pay and will be given opportunity to contribute to daring experiment and world betterment.
Science Associates, 126 West Street.
126 West Street turned out to be one of those ultra-modern, super-scientific buildings.
No windows and air conditioned as cool as a north wind off an iceberg.
About 60 guys had answered the ad.
Hi Major.
Hi Randy.
You've been a long time.
Some of the faces were familiar, guys that had been in my fighter wing.
We sat there, 60 of us, and waited.
An hour, two hours, nothing happened.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting out of here. This place gives me claustrophobia.
It's locked. We're locked in here.
And even before this, had a chance to sink in, another door opened on the far side of the room.
A guy with a white mask on his face came in carrying a Thompson sub-machine gun.
Hey, hit the dash!
They all flattened on the floor except me. I made a dash for the man in the mask, but he disappeared as quickly as he'd come.
Hey, how come you didn't hit the floor dash? You're tired of living?
We were shooting blanks, couldn't you see? Weren't any bullets chipping anything? That was a gag.
I don't like this. Come on, let's crash the door and get out of this rat trap.
Save it, save it, Randy. It won't do any good.
They can keep us bottled up till they're good and ready to let us go.
And then something else. Thick, black, acrid smoke pouring out of the air conditioning vents.
And a sound from somewhere, an airplane diving.
Every pilot remembers with horror the smell of burning oil from a plane out of control.
It hit us way back and deep down. Some of the guys got panicking. I pushed Randy down to the floor.
You'll get more air down here. Relax.
Then the blower's reversed and that smoke was sucked out quickly.
And a loudspeaker cut in from nowhere.
Attention, please.
Hey, quiet down, fellas. Quiet down. Take it easy.
For the past two hours, you have been under close observation as a necessary part of this test.
You were warned in advance the test would be rigid.
As you file out past the guard, you will receive a token compensation for your time and discomfort.
We now ask you all to leave except the man who ran for the gunner.
The door is now open. Thank you.
Looks like you got the job, Major.
Looks like I'm gonna shove it right back in their faces, Randy.
Well, so long.
Yeah.
See you soon.
So long, Randy. Take it easy.
Your name, please.
Well, I hardly expected to find a blonde at the bottom of this.
You will come with me, please.
Don't give me orders, Blondie. I just want to see the guy responsible for this. Then I'm getting out of here.
I take it you have lost interest in contributing to the world benefit.
That what it said in the ad? Well, whatever your lofty purpose, I don't like cold-blooded cruelty.
Unfortunately, personal feelings cannot enter into these steps toward our objectives.
Then your objectives are wrong.
You will be better able to judge that when you know what they are.
I don't think I'm interested. And if I may have a personal feeling, callousness is unattractive enough in a man.
Neither your feelings nor mine will matter in this project, Major. I understand that it was.
Mr. Mr. Kenman, the war is over, Miss.
Dr. Frost.
Poetic.
I beg your pardon?
Nothing. I sometimes mutter to myself.
If it is possible for you to unlock your quite superior intellect from emotional reactions common to schoolgirls and fishwives,
my senior colleague, Professor Baird, and I will attempt to convince you on the only basis that it should appeal to a mature mind.
Thanks.
By all means, Dr. Frost.
The
Oh, but Professor Baird, what did you get the notion of asking for fighter pilots?
Simple. Only one man in ten thousand was able to qualify mentally and physical for fighter training.
Additional eliminations due to flunk-outs, mortality, and training in combat brings the total to one in twenty thousand.
The standards we applied during the two hours in which we observed your every action and reaction raises the mathematical incidence of your sensory acuity to approximately one in a hundred thousand.
I'm flattered.
You'll have greater reason to be if our experiment proves successful.
You will be the only man on earth possessed of your powers.
You will be the man from tomorrow.
How do you propose to go about that?
We will first show you how we've trained other individuals.
Dr. Frost, will you proceed with the demonstration?
Come in, Mr. Logan.
Mr. Logan, have you ever been in this part of the laboratories before?
No.
Would you describe it, please?
It is a rectangular room, forty by twenty.
The ceiling is eighteen and a half feet high.
There's a desk twelve feet from me, slightly to my right.
There are two people seated at it.
One has just risen.
That will be all. Thank you, Mr. Logan.
Well, Mr. Kenman?
It would be very impressive if any schoolboy with normal vision couldn't do as well.
Agreed. Mr. Logan is totally blind.
Looking back now, I can hardly believe my own impressions.
A blind man was followed by a deaf mute, then by a paraplegic who'd lost all control of his vision.
Followed by a deaf mute, then by a paraplegic who'd lost all sense of touch and smell.
The demonstrations were incredible.
Not one of these persons possessed physical senses above the average.
The deprivation of one sense or another in the case of the blind or the deaf man stimulated nature's desire to compensate for the loss.
But what are you trying to prove?
That man has powers even now that are beyond his comprehension.
We wish to explore those powers.
Suppose one, one nearly perfect man with superior sensory perception to begin with could develop the extension of his five senses to the maximum degree we've just observed.
What do you think would happen?
I don't know. Neither do we.
But it is our conviction that this man would also acquire a new sense, a sixth sense, that would endow him with a power never dreamed of before.
Don't you think it's a dimension worth exploring?
Maybe. How could anybody accomplish that?
By training. By producing the circumstances that surround the blind man, the deaf man, and the handicapped.
You would have to agree to cut yourself off from the outside world for three years.
You would spend six months living in a pitch dark laboratory.
You would sleep, eat, function in a world of darkness.
We will use various sound devices to train and measure your hearing responses.
After that, six months will be devoted to simulating the world of the deaf mute, and so on.
You will be paid $20,000 at the end of the three years.
All the necessities of living will be provided during that time.
Then a test will be made, and if our predictions are realized, you will be signed for an additional five years at $20,000 per year.
Dr. Frost will be in charge of the training program.
Do you wish to undertake it?
Well...
That's a pretty serious move. I'd like to think about it.
You have all the facts clearly, Mr. Kenman. We would like a decision now.
You think feeling might enter into my considerations, Doctor? That what you're afraid of?
Afraid? Fear is merely an emotion, Mr. Kenman. I have learned to control all my emotions.
I wonder.
I beg your pardon.
I was muttering again.
What I meant to say is I agree to undertake your experiment.
We will return to escape in just a moment, but first, forest fires, nine out of every ten, are made by man.
So redouble your efforts to eliminate forest fires, crush out every cigarette, break matches in two and grind them with your fingers,
douse down campfires and turn them over until November remains.
Save a fortune in property and save human lives.
And now, back to escape.
I was given two days to settle my affairs such as they were. It meant saying goodbye to my landlady and packing a bag.
And then I reported back to scientific associates, to Dr. Frost of the beautiful face and figure, all ice, and Professor Baird, tall, quiet and clinical.
I was led into a pitch dark room, blacker than the blackest night that was to be my home for six months.
It had a bad bathroom, closets. All I had to do was find them.
I won't waste time telling you what that was like. Just close your eyes tight and try to find your way around a room that's familiar to you.
You'll get the idea. I was still stumbling around three weeks later when I reported for my daily training with Dr. Frost in the adjoining laboratory, which was even blacker if possible.
Are you hurt?
Oh, you wouldn't care if I broke my leg.
There is a chair nearby.
I know. I just fell over it.
Oh.
We can begin as soon as you're settled.
Yeah.
Lucky it's so dark. I'd have to apologize for wearing my pajamas.
Don't you like dressing?
Oh, I love it when I can find my pants.
Today's exercise will be recognition of pure tones.
Here is an example.
That is 1000 cycles or a thousand vibrations per second, stripped of all harmonics.
What would you say that was?
Oh, 1100.
It is 1500 cycles.
Now, please tell me when you begin to hear the next tone and what the frequency is.
I couldn't make the slightest dent in that glacial reserve.
Tried to match her at her own game for a while, but she loved it. And I'm human.
Anyway, at the end of the sixth month, I could ramble through the whole place and never stub my toe.
It was amazing how you learned to sense things in the dark and what your ears could do.
800.
Oh, 4000.
Out.
Good. Excellent.
Mr. Kenman, you're 20 decibels greater than the average ear. That's very good.
Dr. Frost, I can't see you, but do I take the note of enthusiasm in your voice?
Satisfaction, Mr. Kenman. The experiment so far...
Dr. Frost, have you ever let yourself go?
Mr. Henman, I'm not nearly so naive as you assume, nor have any of your innuendos or mumblings for the past six months escaped me.
I told you in the beginning that neither your feelings nor mine would have any bearing on this project.
You haven't answered my question.
I am fully aware of the nature of biological stresses.
In a scientific way, of course.
What distinguishes man from the animal is his understanding of these stresses, but mostly his control.
Control is a traffic cop with a stop sign, Doctor, but eventually the traffic has to go somewhere.
I can understand the frustration of your masculine ego, especially in this forced loneliness of the experiment.
Thank you.
But we have only begun. We have two years or more to go.
The first phase is highly successful. As a scientist, I am very pleased.
Strange, my hearing is so good that I have yet to hear your heartbeat.
Then there was light again, but no hearing.
They devised some newfangled earplugs, and I began six months of silence, six months of being deaf as a doorknob.
Deaf, but not quite deaf because I began to see sounds, to feel sounds, like waves against my skin.
I began to hear with my body, with my pores.
Have you ever touched a sound? Ever seen thunder?
I get so you can look at sounds, almost see the waves they make, trembling in the air.
And have you ever tried silence?
Try, not saying a word, not a syllable for an hour, a day.
I tried it for six months, until all the unsaid words piled up inside my head clung like unborn sounds at the back of my throat.
Whoever said silence is gold and never felt the lump of lead that accumulates inside you.
Silence.
Then the six months ended, and I felt the vibrations of her footsteps down the long hall.
And I saw the door opening, a split second before you would normally see it open, for my eyes were my ears and they were a jump ahead of what they'd ever been before.
I saw her lips move, and I could read every word.
In a moment you will hear again, in just a moment.
Then she removed the fancy earplugs and the little canyon I'd been living in widened to a continent.
And then her moving lips became sounds.
Can you hear now? Can you hear me?
Nod to me or raise your finger when you can hear the sound of my voice.
I heard you five minutes ago.
Were the plugs defective?
No, no, I read your lips.
Incidentally, I take it it's okay for me to talk now.
Of course.
Have I been a good boy? Have I done everything you wanted?
So much so, Mr. Kenman, that we're giving you a few days rest before we begin your training for taste and touch.
Can I do anything I want?
Anything, within reason.
I'd like to have a drink.
Strangely enough, I'd like to have you join me.
Perhaps that can be arranged.
By the way, do you have a first name or are you only a title followed by frost, followed by a long string of degrees?
My first name is Jessica.
Jessica? That's more like it.
Jessica.
After all that silence, it's good just to say a woman's name.
Well, until the experiment is completely over, Mr. Kenman, it had better remain Dr. Frost.
Okay.
Dr. Jessica Frost, plus degrees.
But when I get to take you out for a drink as a normal human being and not as a guinea pig, let's just go to a cocktail bar where they don't cheat.
Cheat?
No.
You ask for a particular brand, this bartender pours out a few drops of it and then fills the rest of the jigger with some of that cheap stuff behind the bar.
How do you know?
Oh, I've been trained in these little subtleties of life by a mastermind.
But one thing, I can spot the different gurgling sounds of the bottles, and then too I seem to have an uncanny knack these days of seeing around corners.
Good, good.
Well, despite the watered down booze, I give you a toast. To you.
You've been very cooperative about this.
Mr. Kenman, I want you to know that I like you very much.
Well, now I'm sure the experiment is a success because I've developed a sixth sense.
I distinctly heard a lovely lady saying, I like you very much, and that couldn't possibly have been you.
I rather enjoyed the touch tests. It was one area I never realized held such hidden powers.
After a few months, my fingertips knew the difference between crystal and diamonds.
I could tell if you had a suntan merely by touching your cheek.
And as for the taste test, food suddenly became a symphony concert. Sourness had many degrees.
Sweetness had a range as wide as the spectrum of a rainbow.
And then, then all of my highly developed senses brought on a new perception, something over and beyond, something added to the rest.
More than a summation of all the senses.
Did you ever swerve the steering wheel of your car suddenly without knowing why, and then you realized the move saved your life?
Or one day you thought of an old friend whom you hadn't seen or communicated with in years, and then you found a letter from him in the box that morning?
Coincidence? Black magic?
I once thought so. I didn't anymore.
I had a knowledge beyond knowledge.
Sit down, Mr. Kenman.
Thank you.
Your period of training has been completed. We've taken the final tests and we've decided to retain you.
Will you execute the contract, please, Mr. Kenman?
It's the arrangement as decided. $20,000 a year for the next five years.
Is anything wrong, Mr. Kenman?
No, nothing wrong. Not now.
Mr. Kenman, what are you doing?
Obviously, I'm not signing it.
Why?
Because I'm afraid.
What is there to be afraid of?
Of myself, Professor. Of what I know now, what I'm going to know in the future. Of what you and Dr. Frost may ask me to do.
Afraid to make contribution to scientific progress, undreamed-of progress?
Professor, remember the sixth sense you gave me. Do you know what I can see?
I can see beyond the test tubes and the telescopes, all your theories and experiments.
And I don't see one important thing. I don't see happiness.
Only fear in falling buildings. That's all I see coming out of my super sense.
I suppose then that you think that all my work, our work, is to go to death and destruction?
It might.
That's not fair.
Isn't it? What happens if I sign the contract? Who makes the decisions?
These are things I can't honestly answer.
I know. That's what I mean. It might be out of your hands then. Governments would pay billions for me. Our own country would guard me like Fort Knox.
I would be the most valuable thing in the world. Alive, even more valuable for some people dead. But a thing, not a man.
That's not going to be for me. Not that way.
All this work, everything we've done doesn't mean anything then. It's all for nothing.
I don't know. I'm sorry. I guess you picked the wrong man for the job.
What are you going to do now?
In fact, my things go away. I don't know where. It doesn't really matter.
Jessica, I probably won't see you again before I go. Thanks for everything.
And I'm sorry you feel that I've let you down.
So long.
Ah, that is that.
Oh, I was just going to...
Try to talk me out of it.
No. Yes, I was, but not anymore.
Oh. I'm very glad you changed your mind.
What are you going to do?
I don't know. Not yet. Kind of funny. Going out of here almost the way I came. One suitcase, I can quote.
Only difference, I've got all the knowledge of the world up here.
I don't know what I'll do with it. I haven't been able to think. Not clearly.
I know one thing, though. There are a lot of things I can try.
What?
Cancer, heart disease, dozen other things. Might not be bad for a start.
Oh, that's not bad for a start.
Do you think you might need someone to help?
Yes. Yes, I think I might.
I've talked to Professor Baird. I think perhaps he understands.
Ah, does he?
Yes.
It's... it's a little uncomfortable for a woman.
I'm not supposed to say anything until you do.
You already know what I'm thinking, don't you?
Let's be old fashioned. I love you. Will you come with me?
Yes. I love you, too.
I know.
Come on, let's go.
Under the direction of Antony Ellis, this cape has brought you The Man from Tomorrow by Irving Reese, starring Lawrence Dubkin as Dix.
Featured in the cast were Vivi Janis, Edgar Berrier, Kurt Martell, Jack Carroll, and Barney Phillips.
The special music for Escape was composed and conducted by Leith Stevens.
Next week, we present a story of two boys and the dreadful game which they played.
You might have read about it in your newspaper. It might have happened in your town.
And if it did, it must never happen again.
So listen next week when Escape will bring you Antony Ellis' terrifying play, The Game.
Would you be interested in the Elsop family, how it diminished and grew?
We suspect you would be for its tomorrow night's crime classics drama on CBS Radio.
Don't miss crime classics on most of these same stations.
This is Roy Rowan speaking.
And remember, Bill Cullen's Walk a Mile show is heard every Monday evening on the CBS Radio Network.
The Game is a production of the U.S. Department of State.
The U.S. Department of State is a proud sponsor of the U.S. Department of State's National
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